A movie called Beowulf is lethargically making the TV rounds in that brief programming window wedged between prime time Seinfeld reruns and late night/early morning Paid-Programming scams.
    With nothing better to do (as usual) and after avoiding the film for several years, I remoted it the other evening thinking it might be a misspelled werewolf flick with a few sexy female vampires thrown in to spice things up. After fifteen minutes of cursory viewing and cursory beer-drinking it became apparent that the thing was an exercise in digital crap aimed at proving that technology can turn anything into compost, even a 1,500-year-old epic poem. Worse yet, the only nudity to show up was Anthony Hopkins as the unpronounceable King Hrothgar flaunting a CGI-enhanced gut and, later on, a muscle-bound male animatron with an upper-lower-middle-upper class British accent ("I am Beowulf! And I'm 'ere to kill your monstah") flaunting a CGI-enhanced six-pack.
    Nevertheless, transfixed by sloth and decrepitude, I kept the show on rather than rise from my beloved grease-stained mouse-gray leatherette recliner that I had purchased for $50 from a consignment store in Amherst, hoping that things might develop in a more toward^* fashion as the night wore on. Just as my jaw was relaxing into a mummified gape and both lids were reaching half-mast I wakened with a start: What to my wondering eyes should show up, but Angelina Jolie with a bare-naked butt!

                
                Angelina as Grendel's mom and Ray Winstone as Beowulf. (Guess which one's
                     which. Hint: Angelina has one hell of a pigtail and can walk on water in stilettos.)

    I snapped awake in a trice as if falling out for inspection during my days at Field Artillery OCS at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before I was kicked out for immaturity, cowardice, and the lack of sufficient neck fat to create rolls under my chin when standing at rigid attention.
    Angelina, it soon developed, was none other than the mommy of a socially challenged and outstandingly homely young monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover gussied up and drooling saliva like Johnny Depp in a remake of the Creature from the Black Lagoon). Six-Pack, you see, had vanquished poor Grendel during an interminable mixed-martial-arts contest on the flimsy pretext that Grendel liked to dine on Scandinavian villagers ─ as though any self-respecting monster would eat a Scandinavian when far more succulent morsels were available in nearby Paris. It should be noted that both Beowulf and the monster were titillatingly naked during the bout bringing back fond memories of Sacha Baron Cohen in his amazingly disgusting wrestling match with Azimov in "Borat."
    So anyway, Angelina, being a good mother, is, like, y’know, totally pissed off at Beowulf for murdering her little bundle of green slime (Ah! Mother Love) and, with the iron logic of Hollywood executives, decides to take vengeance on Beowulf’s six-pack, by seducing it into impregnating her ─ not too difficult a task, in my ‘umble opinion, as one glance at Angelina’s bod would demonstrate.
    After what is undoubtedly a lengthy gestation, the resultant issue turns out to be a really big guy-dragon. Why a dragon? Why not a duck or a cow? Simple. Dragons look really great in 3-D while ducks and cows just look stupid.
    At this juncture the plot, along with the motion picture, begins to decay at an ever-increasing rate until pretty much everyone, everything, and everybody except Angelina is dead, dismembered, disemboweled, and/or incinerated and the audience is headed to the rest rooms to puke from watching all the 3-D effects.
    Will there be a sequel? Christ, I hope not.
    So what’s my point?
    Just this: Who the fuck ever heard of a monster named Grendel? Geez, the Anglo-Saxon jerk who wrote the damn poem back in the sixth century or whenever might as well have called it Bruce or Shirley or MaryJane.
    Hey, wait a minute, I have a better idea: How abut naming it Barney Frank. Try picturing Barney in the nude cavorting on the beach in Fire Island. Now there’s horror for you.
——————————————————————————————————————
*: Note that "toward" is the antonym of "untoward"

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

    The death of George Michael Steinbrenner III was announced July 13 to the accompaniment of a tsunami of editorials, memorials, and encomiums from sports luminaries, sportswriters, ballplayers, and assorted ignoramuses. (Note that I have used the passive phrase "was announced" rather than the active "occurred," lest Van Helsing neglected to drive a wooden stake through the heart of this megalomaniacal blowhard thus risking his re-emergence, vampire-like, to resume his career of bluster, intimidation, and self-aggrandizement )

                        
                                         Steinbrenner (Andy Rash, New York Times, 7/16/10)

    The proximal cause of Steinbrenner’s trip to the nether regions was said to be a massive heart attack, but the underlying cause was Alzheimer’s disease. Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston among others faced the grim reality of this terrible sickness like men. But Steinbrenner, the bullying despot who ran the New York Yankees for three decades, covered up his medical condition. Apparently the Great Leader thought it shameful to admit to dementia, and since he couldn’t buy off God with his millions or scapegoat Billy Martin or Dave Winfield or Hideki Irabu or Ken Holtzman, his only recourse was to crawl into a hole while awaiting the inevitable hour.
    The Yankees, Baseball, New York City, New York State, America, and the planet are all better off without this inflated, mean-spirited, windbag at the helm of the world’s most famous sports franchise. And, happily, I can now end my one-man boycott of Yankee Stadium and once again cheer for the team I grew up with and lived and died with as a boy.
    Unlike the media sycophants who feel it’s their duty to canonize every obnoxious bastard who kicks the bucket (see Teddy Kennedy), I refuse to forget or excuse the long sorry reign of the man whose main glory in life was to be called "The Boss" by those weak enough to kowtow to his bluster or hypocritical enough to prostitute themselves to his money.
    For 18 long years of squandered millions, disastrous trades, and absurd free agent acquisitions, the New York Yankees wallowed in boring mediocrity while their Führer preened and screamed and sloughed off his own failures onto his ballplayers and front office employees. Never once was this person brave enough to own up to his own errors; never once did he refrain from laying blame on others; never once did he apologize for ─ or even acknowledge ─ his own intemperance and lies and posturing and bellowing and knife-in-the-back attacks.
    Here was a man who believed that everyone had a price, that everyone could be bought; that everyone could be controlled, used, abused, and dominated by bribing them with enough money.
    Here was an individual without the manhood to accept responsibility for his own actions, whose cowardice and inner fears and Freudian obsessions led him to blame anybody and everybody for his own failures.
    And now that he’s dead? Why now we’re being treated to a media spectacle of gutless editorial writers, most of whom never went to a ballgame in their effete lives, falling over themselves to give this third-rate Hitler credit for the resurgence of the Yankees while excusing his excesses with mealy-mouthed adjectives from their Gucci handbags of journalistic clichés ─ "Controversial," "Innovative," "Passionate," "Demanding," "Impulsive." What they should have done is visited Roget’s Thesaurus and culled a few dozen synonyms for "Obnoxious," "Tyrannical," "Pig-Headed," and "Paranoid."
    Just to set the record straight, the true rebirth of the Yankee franchise began in 1990, 17 years after Steinbrenner took over the helm, when he was suspended from baseball for hiring a known gambler to "dig up dirt" on Dave Winfield, a grossly overpaid outfielder whom Steinbrenner had pursued with maniacal passion as one would pursue a choice slave at an ante-bellum slave auction. With Steinbrenner out of the way, baseball professionals like Gene Michael had a free hand to run the team in a businesslike manner, make shrewd trades like the acquisition of Paul O’Neill, nurture young talent like Bernie Williams, and halt the giveaway of budding stars like Jay Buhner in exchange for washed-up, overpaid, over-the-hill "names" that Steinbrenner coveted so he could wallow in the borrowed glory of their former fame.
    An epitaph for Steinbrenner‘s grave?
    How about, "GOOD RIDDANCE" chiseled in caps?

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

    What follows is a updated op-ed piece of mine that was published in the Manchester New Hampshire Union Leader a couple of years ago.
    The take-off point for the article was a prior opus by one Carol Shea-Porter (people with hyphenated last names are innately superior to the herd) called "A Common-Sense Plan to Reduce Energy Prices." It is fair to say that both Ms. Shea and Ms. Porter, who share one of New Hampshire’s two seats in the House of Representatives, succeeded in cramming every available cliché and feel-good prevarication that the Green Lobby has been spouting since the sixties into their/her article. (You remember the sixties, don’t you? That’s the decade when America’s idealistic and forward-looking youth invented sex, greened our country, brought nuclear power development to a screeching halt, and got the AIDS epidemic going full blast.)
    My article stirred up quite a bit of comment, mostly bitching. My responses to the critics are included under "Rejoinders" below. I call attention to one key point: The major complaint shared by the bitchers was that I offered only criticisms, not solutions.
    The fact is there is no solution.
    The solutions put forward by the renewable-energy crowd run the gamut from bald-faced lies to asinine bullshit.
    When the world runs out of oil, coal, and natural gas ─ and it will ─ the framework of civilization as we know it will collapse, not all at once, but gradually, over a period of decades, perhaps a century or two. The earth cannot sustain a population of six or ten or 20 billion humans without fossil fuel for fertilizers, transportation, medical research, construction machinery, road maintenance, shipping, urban infrastructure, mining, shopping malls, skyscrapers, soccer stadiums, iPhones. lawnmowers, Walmarts. The result? A new, more permanent Dark Ages.
    But, hey, there's a silver lining. We’ll all be dead by then and probably our kids and their kids too, so who gives a shit, right?
    If you have any comments, pro or con, I’d love to hear them.
                                                                    ────
                                                        My Op-Ed Article
    Anyone, any politician, who claims as Shea-Porter does, that the solution to our energy problems lies to any significant degree in the development of renewable energy sources is either a fool or a liar.
    All renewable energy schemes, all, are based on energy from the sun, either directly ─ solar heating, solar electric — or indirectly ─ hydro, wind, wood, ethanol, trash. organic waste, etc. (For Ms. Shea-Porter’s benefit, natural gas is not a renewable resource and energy-efficient vehicles aren’t a resource at all unless you think they grow on trees in Japan.)
    Water: We have already harnessed most of the world’s available hydro power (with a massive attendant toll on wildlife).
    Wind: Wind farms can contribute only a tiny fraction of the nation’s electric needs and that at the cost of major environmental damage. Moreover, the energy required to develop, manufacture, install, and maintain these monstrosities is dependant on that ol’ devil fossil fuel.
    Ethanol: Ethanol is not only inefficient (it uses more energy to produce than it provides), but escalates food prices, requires petro-chemicals in its production, and contributes to the degradation of the environment.
    Wood: Wood is useful for heating and cooking. It has been since the Lower Paleolithic. But wood stoves pollute the atmosphere. Moreover, wood is a limited resource (it takes 10 acres of New Hampshire woodland to produce enough firewood on a sustainable basis to heat a three-bedroom house). If you don’t believe that wood is a limited resource, just look at an ecological map of Asia or Africa where vast areas of these continents have been turned into desert by mankind’s rape of the primeval forests.
    Solar: Solar energy for heating or generating electricity is the holy grail of the alternate-energy crowd. Its acolytes often salt their sermons with dark hints of greedy oil barons thwarting their righteous cause. They don’t mention that manufacturing solar cells is prohibitively expensive in terms of money, resources, and fossil fuel. Solar-electric is a technology that for the foreseeable future is useful only in extreme contexts ─ outer space, the Antarctic, rain-forest Eco-resorts in Belize. Nor do they mention that solar heating suffers from similar flaws plus one other — it is most available where it is least needed. India, Miami Beach, the Mojave Desert, Baja California, and equatorial Africa get plenty of nice, fat sunlight, but try keeping your family warm with solar during the heart of a New England winter.
    Geothermal: I know it’s a quixotic battle, but geothermal energy is not the same as heat pumping no matter what the New York Times says. True geothermal is pie-in-the-sky nonsense that might have some applicability if ones house is located on the slopes of Mauna Loa or atop the San Andreas fault or in the neighborhood of Old Faithful, but has no potential if one dwells in Hooksett or Manchester or even the more liberal sections of Massachusetts.
    Et cetera: As for waste conversion, methane digesters, and other pipe dreams ─ puleeze...give me a break. Remember Masterblaster in the film Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome? Well, don’t consider it to be a documentary on how to produce gasoline from hog shit.
    There are, of course, significant ways to save energy. Many ─ home insulation, smaller automobiles, mass transport ─ were obvious to us stupid masses even without Shea-Porter to lead us to the promised land. Other, less palatable, but realistic solutions ─ population control, the reversal of suburban sprawl, and drastic changes in our lifestyles ─ are never broached by the elite of liberal thought...lest they cost these devout folk some votes at election time.
    What should be understood, and probably won’t be, is that dependence on foreign oil will not be alleviated by political posturing, scape-goating, or demonizing British Petroleum. We should bear in mind, and probably won’t, that all resources, not just oil, are finite ─ with a single exception, that being hot air from politicians running for office.
                                                                    ────
                                                         My Rejoinders
    Glad to see my opinion column (it’s not an editorial, Gary I. Kerr of Chichester) raised so many hackles. That’s what opinion pieces are for. Since there are so many pejoratives to deal with, I’ll take a scattershot approach to answering a few.

1. Jason of Londonderry and a lot of others seem disturbed that I didn’t offer solutions. My piece was not about solutions, it was about politicians peddling phony solutions. And by the way (I know this is a terrible, terrible thing to say), what makes everybody so certain there is a solution?

2. Dave M. of Sandwich says he’s living off the grid {at least in the summer). Dave ─ this may come as a shock to you ─  but New York City is not going to be able to live off the grid, 100,000,000 cars are not going to be powered off the grid, the world’s airlines are not going to fly to Hong Kong and London and Rio and Miami and Melbourne off the grid, our military is not going to fight wars off the grid. That’s great you say? I’m not so sure I don’t agree with you. But let’s not talk about keeping the status quo with quasi magical sources of energy.

3. Art from Portsmouth accuses me of being an editor, not a writer. I am hurt, Arthur, deeply, deeply hurt.

4. Jeff Anderson from Weare, clearly a top flight nuclear physicist, says that Hydrogen plus Oxygen produces energy according to Einstein’s e = mc² formula. Jeez, and here I thought the atomic bomb was based on the conversion of mass into energy. Good to know it was just drinking water being produced at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not that nasty radioactivity.

5. Somebody with the moniker www.northeastgeo.com/ complains that heat pumping is the same as geothermal. It isn’t. My son in Kentucky has a home with a heat pump. There are lots of homes with heat pumps even in Peterborough. Heat pumps are energy efficient, but they have nothing to do with renewable energy or with geothermal, which is a scheme for tapping volcanic heat deep within the crust of the earth.

6. William of Deerfield is angry about many things ─ second-hand smoke, mercury in fish, war, CEOs, poverty, Arabs, conservatives, bad air. I don’t like most of these either, particularly second-hand smoke and CEOs (I did work at the Reader’s Digest for 21 years after all). On the other hand I’m having a bit of a problem figuring out what William’s shopping list has to do with renewable energy. Oh well, I guess I’m just an old neocon mired in old thinking.

To everybody, pro or con, rational or irrational: I do not advocate or condemn drilling. I am not in favor of or against nuclear energy. I am for conservation. I am for preservation of the wilderness (and against wind farms). And I am unalterably opposed to politicians of the Shea-Porter breed feeding sugar-coated pap to whatever undecided voters remain in these contentious times.

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

────────

According to informations you submit, you purchase thees Fluffy beetch from Southern New York Beagle Club een Yorktown Heights. Beagle ees notorious howling-type animal. You’ bes’ recourse ees to trade een for Alaskan Malamute type wife. Be careful to avoid noisy Sarah Palin cultivar of thees otherwise polite breed wheech ees marketed by unscrupled Syrian marriage brokers, Greek pet shop dealers, and eHarmony.com

 LSD, Dogtown Springs, Mauna Loa (not real initials, town, or volcano), writes:

I (not my real pronoun) and my girlfriend Diana (not her real name except when calling her to dinner) have been together on and off and on and off for 17 years. Although somewhat overweight (217 pounds and counting on a 5’ 2" frame) she keeps herself immaculately groomed, shaving her body hair and trimming her mustache at least twice a week. However, since New Year’s Day two years ago SHE HAS ALLOWED THE NAILS ON HER HIND LEGS TO GROW UNTRAMMELED. I have brooched the topic of her elongated nails several times, but she says it is her life’s goal to have them enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records.
    Her claws are growing apace (I measured one of her dewclaws at 3¼ inches). While attention-grabbing at the beach (she coats them with Maybelline’s Express Finish® 50 Second Timely Turquoise 899 Nail Color), they are also as sharp as the talons on a Great Horned Owl. You may think this is a trivial problem, but if you saw the scars on my legs, back, and other places and the blood-stained sheets on our bed after a session of love-making, you would, perhaps, understand my concern. How can I convince Gloria (not her real name) to trim her claws without having her burst into tears or, worse yet, savage me on vulnerable areas of my body? (I should mention that several of her toes are prehensile.)

RLS, Aldebaran, Constellation Taurus, writes: 

My name is Dan (not my real name). I am a large, hirsute, seriously overweight illegal alien in his early 50s or late 60s who is fortunate to be engaged to a playful female in her teens (a former mascot of the Minnesota Timberwolves). Her name, as I recall, is either Winnie (her real name) or Sophie or Grace, neither or both of which may or may not be her real name. Let’s call her Jasmine for the hell of it. In any event, Jazz, as I would refer to her affectionately in moments of high pique if that was her real nickname, is a hot little bitch. Unfortunately, her preferred orientation during moments of carnal intimacy (that is to say, fucking) is known colloquially as "The Doggie Position." Alas, however, as it were, and so to speak, I have a painful back problem, a reminder of my injury-prone career as tight longshoreman for the Chicago Bears football team. Not surprisingly, therefore, in a manner of speaking, and to wit, I lean toward "la femme supérieur" alignment, as the Italians might put it if they spoke Russian. Unfortunately, given my girth and lush growth of belly hair, Jazz balks at having to "climb aboard."
    "What shall I do? My back is killing me. A few weeks more of this "doggie" stuff and I’ll be in a wheelchair.

 The Wife Whisperer Responds:

You have fail’ to provide detailed informations about you’ house-beetch making diagnoseeses mos’ deeficult. Ees thees Jazz short-hair or long-hair? Have her ears been cleeped? What sort of feed do you employ? Iams Proactif Health Chunkies? Purina Fit & Treem? You mus’ be speeceefical! I await you’ responses. Een meantime, I suggest you eenstal large mirrors over you’ bed an’ other places where mounteeng happeneengs occur. Thus, eef you have pre’aps succeed een eenstalling her on you’ top, she weel look upwards and theenk she ees on bottom.

  Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net  

a) An immense pothole opened up on Hunterbrook Road with Satan standing irresistibly in its midst, pitchfork and pint of Jack Daniels in hand
b) The car was hijacked by a mob of cheerleaders who forced your son to drink a quart of Kahlua before gang-raping him and wrecking the car
c) In a desperate attempt to rescue a neighbor’s cat stranded in a tree, your son slammed the car into the tree trunk. As a reward for saving the cat, the neighbor ─ a Mrs. Nancy Pelosi ─ treated the boy to a sip of rum
d) He got stinking drunk at an underage drinking party

2. Your 15-year-old daughter tearfully confesses to her mother that she is pregnant. What could have caused this unfortunate situation?

a) The Holy Spirit in the person of Christopher Walken as the Angel Gabriel flew into your daughter’s bedroom disguised as a large male swan and had his way with her
b) A mixed gang of Hell’s Angels, High School Computer Club nerds, and AARP members swarmed out of the bushes behind the football stands after class and had their way with her
c) After listening to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC your daughter fell into a trance featuring vampires, werewolves, and George Bush all of whom had their way with her
d) She got knocked up by her boyfriend  

3. You discover a half-eaten $25 sirloin steak that you had been planning to use for a cookout lying in a dusty corner of the kitchen. The family cat is in the living room purring and licking its ass, a tinge of red around its chops. How could this disaster have befallen your steak?

a) A reincarnation of the Biblical Patriarch Abraham had been ordered by Jehovah to rip off an expensive cut of meat and sacrifice it on a neighbor’s outdoor cooker
b) A sirloin-addicted poltergeist that Stephen King warned of in his 75th blockbuster horror novel had materialized in the crawlspace beneath the kitchen and despoiled the steak
c) A localized earthquake struck the countertop where the meat was resting causing it to fall to the floor where a passing hobo spotted it and gnawed off a section
d) The cat ate it

4. You  arrive home to your bachelor digs on the Lower East Side after a hard day goofing off at Reader’s Digest to find your bathtub overflowing and your apartment and several apartments below flooded. How could this have happened?

a) Ectoplasm from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come oozed into your apartment through a keyhole and turned on the water as punishment for you not contributing to the Salvation Army
b) A Mafia hitman named Salvatore "The Beagle" Constipigleore broke in and opened the tap as a warning not to turn state’s evidence against Eliot Spitzer
c) The volcano goddess Pelé once again wreaked vengeance upon your plumbing because of the lava stones you brought back from Hawaii
d) You were drunk and left the water running

    While you are chewing these multiple choices over, let’s move on to another, more portentous matter: How does one account for the behavior of the strange creature currently occupying the White House who insults America’s allies, betrays America’s friends, bows to America’s adversaries, apologizes to America's enemies, relies on a teleprompter to read speeches that other people prepare for him, is unaware of how many states are in the Union, doesn’t know how to pronounce the word "corps," and thinks "twitters" is the name of a social network and that Europe is a country?
    Here are some of the excuses floating around the media and cyberspace.
    •His critics are racists
    •It's all Bush-Hitler's fault
    •He’s getting bad advice
    •His brilliance makes him arrogant
    •He’s new to the job, give him time to settle in
    •The press is against him
    •He's having a run of bad luck
    •He's the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy
    •Rush Limbaugh
    Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to Razor Barack, not to praise him.
    The problem with President Barack H. Obama is not bad luck or George Bush, or racial prejudice or youthful inexperience or even personality defects.
    There is a simple, straightforward Occam’s Razor explanation for the phenomenon that currently inhabits the Oval Office and the golf course: Barack Obama is STUPID ─ totally, flat-out, congenitally STUPID. And by stupid, I do not mean ignorant or ill-educated or inexperienced. I mean DUMB...as in thick, slow, simple-minded. I mean someone with a weak intellect. I mean a classic out-and-out All-American dope. (For more details on Obama's intelligence or lack of same, click on Is Obama Stupid and Lazy?)
    Some believe Barack Obama is the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter. Not true. L’il Jimmah was a bright enough fellow before senility took its toll (demonstrating that intelligence is no barrier to incompetence). Barack, however, is the genuine box-full-of-rocks, one-can-short-of-a-six-pack article. And, as with all dimwits, he accuses his critics of being ignorant, mendacious, or prejudiced when they fail to appreciate the profundity of his trivial insights, the nobility of his nonexistent motives, and the overwhelming rightness of all Rahm Emanuel and David Axlerod tell him to espouse.
    Every asinine thing this man does, every jerkwater statement out of his mouth, every bad decision he makes, every faux pas he perpetrates, every diplomatic blunder he commits, every campaign promise he forgets can be explained. Just follow William of Occam's dictum.
    When a man acts stupidly, says stupid things, and looks stupid, there’s a simple explanation: He is stupid.
    But let’s be fair.
        •On the basis of observation, I have concluded that the President is a nitwit.
        •On the basis of thrills rippling up his leg toward his genitals, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews
          has concluded that the President is a genius.
    Mr. Obama, how about settling this honest disagreement?
    Release your SAT scores, Release your IQ scores, release your grade-school, high-school, college, and law-school records, release your Grad Record Exam score, release your Armed Forces Qualification Test score.
    What the hell is the big secret, man? Concerned that folks will think you’re a snob because you’re so brilliant?
    Or, just maybe, are you afraid that people will discover what an utter affirmative-action ass you are?
    Go ahead Rahm and David and Valerie ─ prove Chris and Marcos and Arianna and Keith right.
    Go ahead Barack ─ prove the doubters wrong.
    I’ll be the happiest man in the country to learn that my President is a man of superior intellect...and I will gladly, if not enthusiastically, consume a platter of sautéed crow if Michelle will whip one up for me.

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

Answers to Quiz:
    If you answered (d), (d), (d), and (d) you are an aficionado of Occam’s Razor
    If you answered (a), (a), (a), and (a), you’re a religious fanatic and I wish you the best
    If you answered anything else, you’re a raving lunatic or Keith Olbermann ─ oh, wait a minute,
     that’s redundant.

    Fifty years ago an artsy-craftsy personage with the unlikely name of Newton Minnow described the television landscape of his day as a Vast Wasteland.
    Geez! Poor Mr. Minnow! He oughta be alive today (and, strangely enough, he is). I mean, like, he was living in the Golden Age of boobtubedom and he didn’t even know it. Those were the days of B&W video and 4-by-3 TV screens and Philco television sets. They were also the days of Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners, of Perry Mason before he blew up like a blimp and Carol Burnett and I Love Lucy and Jack Benny and the Twilight Zone and Ed Sullivan with Elvis and the Beatles and some really great shews. (Okay Godfrey was around, but hell, you gotta give Arthur credit for providing satirical material for Bob and Ray.)
    Slow-forward to the present ─ broadcasts in dazzling full color, fiber-optic networks, hundreds of channels (or is it thousands?), oblong wall-to-wall video displays, enough coax cable to encircle the solar system, comsats clogging the stationary earth orbit, HDTV, surround sound, flat-screen plasmas and LCDs up the chotch, and, most important, that holiest of holies, massive, chaotic, cutthroat COMPETITION, that sacred American modus operandi sure to result in programming tailored to fit the lowest common denominator of American mass stupidity.
    No more Vast Wasteland. Instead a VAST FUCKING DISASTER, a super-tanker of dazzling technology loaded with a cargo of phony reality shows, phony talent competitions, phony weight-reduction scams, phony butt-enhancement scams, phony muscle-building scams, phony funniest home videos, phony paranormal documentaries, phony cops-and-robbers epics, and phony biographies of phony rock-and-roll luminaries no one with half a brain gives a shit about. And all this cornucopia of waste matter salted with endless reruns of bad ‘60s and ‘70s series and worse ‘80s, and ‘90s series with an occasional dash of Bulgarian-made horror flicks thrown in.
    But of all the reprehensible trash on television, what ticks me the most is the bottom-line hypocrisy practiced by channel after channel when you compare their noble-sounding "Mission Statements" with the wretched actuality of what their marketing experts choose to show. The chart below makes clear what I mean. The data comes mostly from a scan of programs scheduled on a recent Thursday.

    Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor-thing and recipient of the What’s the Frequency Kenneth Award for Fearless News Distortion and Gratuitous Lying, has slithered silently from the spotlight into the shadowy realm of those who are soon to be dead.
    Some of us forget that Dan was famous for more than just purveying forged documents in Prime Time in an attempt to influence the 2004 Presidential Election. He was also a renowned quote-smith, generating a stream of folksy observations that he and his team of writers spent weeks preparing so he could deliver them spontaneously on his evening broadcasts.
    With this in mind, and in recognition of this great American’s lifetime of megalomania and borderline psychosis, Dome of Glass is reprinting and updating some of Mr. Rather’s most pithy sayings so that posterity does not forget this towering Sasquatch of journalism who so bravely demonstrated that having a paranoid personality need be no bar to fame or riches in the wonderful world of. liberal media. Without further ado:

Original Rather Quote: I'm proud to say I've never been anybody's lapdog
Updated Rather Quote: I’m proud to say I’ve never been housebroken

Original Rather Quote: I've always tried to be fair, even-handed, not an advocate for any group
Updated Rather Quote: I've always tried to be fair, even-handed, not an advocate for any group such as fucking Republican Fascists

Original Rather Quote: To err is human but to really foul up requires a computer
Updated Rather Quote: To err is human but to really foul up requires a computer, a Xerox machine, a lack of common sense, a liberal agenda, and a CBS News Producer feeding you blatantly phony documents obtained from a disreputable source

Original Rather Quote: I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with heroin so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to "smack," and quickly
Updated Rather Quote: I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with sodium pentathol so I could do a story about it. The experience was a special kind of hell. I came out understanding full well how one could be addicted to "truth." Never again!

Original Rather Quote: A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well
Updated Rather Quote: A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes paranoid personalities with delusions of grandeur well

Original Rather Quote: Never eat spinach just before going on the air
Updated Rather Quote: Never do drugs just before going on the air. Do them an hour or two before to give them time to take effect

Original Rather Quote: Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy
Updated Rather Quote: Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy. They prefer living in pig sties, being arrested by the secret police, and rotting in Siberian gulags

Original Rather Quote: Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek
Updated Rather Quote: Don’t piss into the wind unless your stoned out of your mind and wearing hip waders

Original Rather Quote: Fear rules almost every newsroom in the country
Updated Rather Quote: Stupidity rules almost every newsroom in the country. If you don’t believe it, check in with Mary Mapes and CBS management

Original Rather Quote: Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic
Updated Rather Quote: Americans will believe anything provided a wild-eyed nut says it over and over on a major network

Original Rather Quote: I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas
Updated Rather Quote: I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD, pot, crack, huff, bennies, horse, ecstasy, moon gas, blow, angel dust, meth, magic mushroom, OxyContin, demerol, codeine, and flash. I've never been a social user of any of these things, of course, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of dark and really bad-smelling places

Original Rather Quote: I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces
Updated Rather Quote: I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces. Aren't I an incredibly courageous and really admirable person?

Original Rather Quote: Only votes talk, everything else walks
Updated Rather Quote: Only I can talk, everyone else should shut up or I’ll get very upset and teary-eyed

Original Rather Quote: Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance
Updated Rather Quote: Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance and you can end up a weird laughingstock like me

Original Rather Quote: Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow
Updated Rather Quote: Courage is being afraid, instituting delusional lawsuits, and crawling into a pit to die when the courts toss the case out

Original Rather Quote: The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth"
Updated Rather Quote: The dream begins in a Greenwich Village bar with a forceful older man who is attracted to you, who tugs and pushes and strokes you when you visit his apartment, often poking you with a thing called an "appendage"

Original Rather Quote: An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger
Updated Rather Quote: An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to me and not think of Anthony Perkins in "Psycho"

Original Rather Quote: And now the sequence of events in no particular order
Updated Rather Quote: And now the sequence of events in no particular order. (Thanks for the quote, Yogi)

Original Rather Quote: Journalists should denounce government by public opinion polls
Updated Rather Quote: The public should denounce news broadcasts by opinionated crackpots masquerading as journalists

Original Rather Quote: They may have turned this up, whether you had the Paula Jones case or not. But again maybe not, but again that's like if a frog had side pockets he'd probably wear a handgun
Updated Rather Quote: Would somebody please tell me what the hell I was talking about when I said this? I mean, if a frog had sidepockets, I don’t think anyone would expect him to be wearing a gun, right? Walter Cronkite had sidepockets and he didn’t wear a gun as far as I know. Of course Cronkite wasn’t a frog as far as I know. On the other hand, don’t y’all think the quote sounds real gosh-darn dadgum down-home-Texas folksy?

Original Rather Quote: For years Don Imus was just ─ boy, he was merciless in his criticism of me. Maybe it was justified, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt
Updated Rather Quote: For years Don Imus was merciless in his criticism of me. Maybe it hurt, but boy, was he right

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

[The program opens with a 15-second sequence of tasteful photographs of wives in various stages of undress floating across the screen accompanied by muted theme music ("Martha My Dear" played on a Jew’s Harp). This is followed by three minutes of commercials for Geico, Geico, Geico, and Geico after which the resonant alto of Announcer Wally Ballou comes on in voiceover]

ANNOUNCER: ...ly Ballou here. Before we immerse ourselves in tonight’s episode I am happy to announce the successful resolution of  The Case of the Recalcitrant Wife . Mr. Malcolm Barff, the complainant, has regained use of the right side of his body after his Tasering experience. Although his buttocks and left side remain inert, the veterinarians at Angel Memorial in Boston are confident that he may have a full partial recovery in a year or two. Best of all, Mr. Barff’s consort, Grenada, has left him for a career with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey as a featured performer in the circus' trained dog act. [Ballou pauses as canned murmuring followed by canned applause erupts. Once the sound effects subside he continues] And now let us join The Wife Whisperer as he wrangles with a new challenge that we call "The Case of Wilson Ransom’s Randy Wife."

[The TV camera pans around the living room of the Ransoms' mobile home pausing in turn on Mr. Ransom, then on a swirling knot of four or five children, and, finally, on Ransom’s wife Tiffany who is reclining on a large, stuffed Ocean State Job Lot doggie cushion inside a cage. She is clad in a semi-transparent teddy and minimalist bikini panties. The Wife Whisperer ─ dapper, mustachioed, and pot-bellied ─ speaks to the camera]

WW: [Smiling toothily] Buenos Aires Señors, Señoras, Señoritas, Niños, Niñas an’ pre’aps other types. I am Francisco de Pinto y Olbermann known to meelions as...THE WIFE WHEESPERER. Tonight we take up the mos’ fasceenating case of "Randolph Wolfus’ Willing Randy." Weel you please to join me Meester Wolfong?

[Ransom rises from his Walmart Rocker-Recliner and joins the Wife Whisperer. He is a tall, emaciated, balding man with an unkempt grayish beard stained by cigarette smoke and droplets of egg yoke]

RANSOM: [Timidly] Uh, Mr. Wife Whisperer, sir. My name is Ransom, Wilson Ransom.

WW: Who then ees Randy, eef I may be so bol’ as to eenquire?

RANSOM: Uh, that would be Tiffany, sir. My wife.

WW: Ah! I see. Eet ees you’ ver’ attractive beetch who ees Randy. Ees that then you’ pet name for her?

RANSOM: No, sir. Her name isn’t Randy. She is randy.

WW: [Irritably] Thees ees going nada. Let us move on to you’ problems before we mus’ halt for more Geico publicitarios. Por favor already ─ enunciate you’ troubles Meester Rudolph.

RANSOM: Uh, Ransom, Mr. Wife Whisperer, sir. My name is Ransom not Rudolph.

WW: [Impatiently] Whatever you weesh.

RANSOM: Well, sir...you see, sir, she...uhh...my wife that is...

WW: Yes...Yes...

RANSOM: [Blurting] She has a very high libido...

WW: What ees thees word "Leebeedoh?"

RANSOM: Uh...um...I guess you would call it sex drive, sir that is...uh...

WW: [Looking at the children who are fighting and yelling and pushing each other on the couch] So I see. Ver’ eempressive colección of leetle pups you have there. An’ all so deeferent from one ‘nother and from you’self. Does thees Randy beetch then come into heat often?

RANSOM: Uh, Tiffany. Yes. Quite often. Frequently in fact. To tell the truth, she’s almost always in season.

WW: And why should thees upset you Meester Ruprecht. Many men would be pleased to have a hot curvy beetch running about their casa in her panties.

RANSOM: It is difficult to...uh...keep her satisfied...uh...her needs...

WW: What ages do you call you’self?

RANSOM: I’ve just turned 47.

WW: From you’ veesage I would have guessed a beet older ─ 70 or 80 say.

RANSOM: Yes, sir. My friends tell me the same thing. I’ve aged considerably since I obtained Tiffany. At the time I weighed 235 pounds. Now I’m down to 136.

WW: Does thees Randy person have other behavioring difficulties that need the corrections?

RANSOM: Um...Uh...

WW: Speak up! Do not be shy! We are all adulterers here!

RANSOM: Well, sir, there’s the foreplay, as well as the play and the afterplay ─ especially the afterplay. It can get fairly violent. [Pulls down the collar on his turtleneck sweater and shows The Wife Whisperer several angry red welts on his neck]

WW: Ees other anatomical areas that have been abused?

RANSOM: I...I’d...rather not get into that.

WW: You’ preevates pre’aps? Many high-spirited beetches enjoy a friendly neebble upon these regions.

RANSOM: The emergency room at the hospital is threatening not to treat me any more.

WW: And that is all?

RANSOM: Um...er...well...there is the matter of visitors.

WW: Please to be more speceeficational.

RANSOM: How shall I put it? Tiffany has the habit of rubbing herself on deliverymen, the UPS driver, house guests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, family relatives, repairmen, the Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman, pizza delivery boys, bag ladies, school children ─ almost anyone who shows up. I’ve tried to cure her of the habit, but to no avail.

WW: What methods have you used?

RANSOM: Rolled up newspapers...a water pistol filled with ammonia...saltpeter in her Kibbles. I give her doggie treats as soon as I’ve peeled her off whomever she’s mounted. And I’m careful to pat her rump and scratch her ears and tell her "Good girl" if she sits quietly for a minute or two as my dog training manual suggests. No sooner do I turn my back, though, but she’s up to her old tricks with whatever shin is closest.

WW: [Nodding sagely and stroking a non-existent beard] I do not know who thees Teefany person you speak of ees, but eef you are referencing you’ beetch Randy or you’ Randy beetch, I theenk a peecture formulate eetself in my highly-trained brain despite you’ confusion. Thees mujer of yours suffer from what we in Mexico and many parts of Eetaly an' the Francia call "Aggresseeve Humping Seendrome." Ees a mos’ serious condeetion for wheech many experts would see no alternatives but to put thees variety of wife down. However, I, Francisco de Pinto y Olbermann, THE WIFE WHEESPERER, find great pleasures and challenges to work weeth such extreme savage and attractive beetches as thees one.

RANSOM: What do you suggest?

WW: Ees the humping acteevity confine' to the male type peoples?

RANSOM: Unfortunately, no. She does show a preference for teenage boys and girl scouts, however.

WW: Eet weel be a mos’ deefficult task but not one that ees imposseeble for experts such as I. You see, you’ beetch exheebit classic seemptoms of a repressed upbringings teepical of breeds trained in Catholic girls‘school. Much Negateeve Energies have flowed into her pericardium. We mus' exorcise these negateevities and replace weeth Positeeve Energies. Thees weel require much firmness on your part and pre’aps some body armor.

RANSOM: How do we start, oh Master?

WW: [Calling out the door of the trailer] André? Come here André.

[André enters the living room. He has been on a steroid regimen since the last episode. He has also spent considerable time in a tanning salon and grown a drooping mustache. As a result he now resembles Hulk Hogan rather than Dick Butkus]

WW: [To André] Breeng the cage containing the wife over here por favor.

[André lifts the cage along with Tiffany with one hand and carries it to The Wife Whisperer]

WW: Down, André! Put the cage down!

[André drops the cage with a thud. Tiffany reaches through the bars and caresses the giant’s biceps]

TIFFANY: You’re a big one ain’t you. Whatcha doin’ this evening?

WW: [To Mr. Ransom] Tomorrow I weel take you’ beetch to Wifey Park een Green-witch Village. There she can frolic an’ meengle weeth others of her kind to get the healthful aerobic exercises an' sniff each others butts. You mus’ unnerstan’ Meester Ronson that the female have a mos’ acute sense of smelling by wheech she weed out those she deesire to shack up weeth versus those who she scorn and detest an' weel be driven, perchance, to attack such as you’self.

TIFFANY: [Turning her attention away from André and to The Wife Whisperer] You’re kinda cute there, Francisco. Greasy little guys with pot bellies are a turn on.

WW: [To Mr. Ransom] That ees a freesky leetle beetch you got there Meester Molson. I theenk I get along weeth her jus’ fine. [Turns to Tiffany] I mus’ now ask you question, baby.

TIFFANY: Sure honey. whatever you want.

WW: [To Mr. Ransom] Please to remove you’ shirt Meester Mallard.

[Ransom strips off his turtleneck revealing a bony back and a narrow, pale, hairless chest covered with scars and bruises]

WW: [To Tiffany while nonchalantly indicating Ransom’s wounds] Deed you have the parts in any of these damages Meesus Randy, sweetie?

TIFFANY: Perhaps one or two, honey. Sometimes I get a bit enthusiastic. But not that one on the shoulder blade. Maybe the love-play got out of hand when I mounted him last week, but I never bit his shoulder.

RANSOM: [Whispering to The Wife Whisperer] There’s no need to pursue this matter further, sir. I’m satisfied with the steps we’ve taken.

WW: We shall see about that, Meester Rumford. You mus’ know that no one are able to put the wools over nose of Francisco de Pinto y Olbermann. He ees like the Thomas English muffin; he mus’ investigate all nookies and grannies. Eet ees hees chyob. André, breeng me the smoking ears of the peeg.

[André returns with a large brown-paper bag that he hands to The Wife Whisperer. The Wife Whisperer unlocks the cage and helps Tiffany to her feet]

WW: [Speaking soothingly to Tiffany while stroking her hair and patting her behind. She responds by licking his face and making small, contented whining noises] Now, now! No need to get upsettling weeth you’self Meesus Randy. We shall jus’ need to perform a seemple test to deetermine the truthfully of you’ husban’s claims. [The Wife Whisperer takes a smoked pig ear from the bag and hands it to Tiffany] Bite down on thees ear of peeg if you mos’ kindly weel.

TIFFANY: [Bites off a chunk of pig ear, swallows it, then consumes the rest] Yummy. Can I have another?

RANSOM: Damn that stuff stinks.

WW: [To Mr. Ransom, sternly]: You mus’ not transmit the negateeve energies toward you’ beetch please. Such steenking peeg parts ees consider great delicacy among Real House-Beetches of New York City. [Hands Tiffany another pig ear]: Here, sexy lady, you weel please to gnaw less harshly on you’ new ear of peeg for please.

[Tiffany bites down on the pig ear and starts to gnaw on it. As The Wife Whisperer attempts to retrieve it, she clamps down tightly on the ear, the hair on her hackles rises, she snarls threateningly exposing her fangs, and backs away on her haunches shaking her head violently . After a struggle he manages to pry her jaws open and remove the ear. He holds the ear alongside Ransom’s bitten shoulder]

WW: Thees tooths do not match I am remorseful to say.

TIFFANY: [To Ransom, growling and foaming at the mouth] You mutt! You’ve been cheating on me! What’s the slut’s name? It was that Saluki bitch you were oogling at the animal shelter, wasn’t it? [She flies at Ransom and starts tearing at his throat]

RANSOM: [Struggling to hold his wife at bay] It must have been those novelty teeth that I bought you as an anniversary present, dearest! You know, the ones that jump around and go "clickety-clack" when you wind them up. I remember now. I tripped and fell on them when I was preparing your favorite Purina chow for supper. Ouch! Please, dear, not my nose! Please, I beg you, it’s all I have left!

WW: [Calmly to André] André. Pre’aps the tranqueelizers ees now call for here. You will please to admeenister.

[André leaves and reappears with a dart pistol and a bandoleer of tranquilizer darts. He fires a dart at Mr. Ransom who collapses. He then zaps Tiffany in the buttocks with several darts. She gradually eases her assault on Ransom and finally backs away on all fours from his inert form]

TIFFANY: [Slowly and sleepily, a happy smile on her face] Oh, wow! That is like some kinda harsh shit you got there big boy! I ain’t felt this good since the vet ingested me full o’ Demerol when I was whelping the last one of the litter.

WW: [To André] You weel please to breeng thees hot beetch to peeckup truck. Ensconce her there een dog carrier ─ the peenk one weeth the Labrador retriever bobble-head on top. And kindly to place several Snuggies an' the Al Gore chew toy inside for her to play weeth. Eef an’ when Meester Meister awaken tell heem I shall maybe return hees beetch to heem een week or two or month or whenever I get tired of her pre’aps.

[André tucks Tiffany’s semi-inert form under one arm and exits through the trailer door, The Wife Whisperer behind him. The sound of an electronic drum beat comes on in the background and the announcer’s voice comes on in voiceover]

                        
                                     André prepares Mrs. Ransom for the dog carrier

ANNOUNCER: Thank you Wife Whisperer. Thank you André. We will be back in a moment as soon as we clear away Mr. Ransom’s body. First, though, these brief messages from our sponsors.

[After five minutes of commercials including three more Geicos, several lawyers hawking lawsuits to mesothelioma victims, and a lengthy infomercial touting a plastic vegetable-chopping device, the announcer comes back on]

ANNOUNCER: Thank you for watching THE WIFE WHISPERER. Be sure to join us on the Arts and Entertainment Channel* next week or next month or sometime or other for another heart-warming episode of THE WIFE WHISPERER ─ as soon as we figure out what it’s going to be.

*The Wife Whisperer has moved to the Arts and Entertainment channel from the National Geographic Channel. Dome of Glass investigative journalist Jason Blair contacted A&E to ask what the program had to do with either Arts or Entertainment. He quotes A&E Spokesperson Debbie Milkfloss as explaining, "Nothing else on our channel has anything to do with arts or entertainment, so why should this be any different?"

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

ATTENTION MEN: For online help with your wife or girlfriend click ASK THE WIFE WHISPERER

I have a personal "Don’t Watch" list of TV shows and motion pictures that has grown so large over the years that there’s just about nothing left for me except the Military Channel and old Ray Harryhausen epics. If you have some favorite non-favorites of your own, please send them along via the "Comments" button at the bottom of the post. For what it’s worth, here’s the roster:

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

    My wife and I regularly donate to a number of charities: local organizations such as Peterborough Fire and Rescue, Monadnock Music, and Monadnock Worksource; environmental do-gooders such as Audubon, Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund.; traditional groups such as ASPCA, Salvation Army, and Goodwill Industries; and New Hampshire veteran and firefighter benevolent societies.
    Each April, come IRS time, I agonizingly search our records, add up our previous year’s contributions, multiply by 10, and enter the result on my income tax return.
    A few years back I began to notice that we were contributing two times a year ─ sometimes three ─ to many of our favorite charities.
    Now I did not squander 21 years of my middle age at Reader’s Digest General Books Division without developing sensitive nostrils for the presence of Rattus Marketus - a variety of corporate pestilence known to the public as "Marketers" that are hatched like insect larvae out of third-rate community college incubators and then parceled out to semi-respectable enterprises where they while away their time puffing out their tiny chests and dipping their sticky fingers into whatever tills are available.
    The symptoms of marketing infestation have now appeared with a vengeance within the Charity Industry. Some years ago, apparently, after the requisite number of catered meetings, get-togethers in exotic Caribbean locales, expense-account luncheons, and ass-kissing forays into the window-offices of senior management, it dawned on a select group of marketing geniuses that after a few months almost all the suckers forget whether or not they have contributed and hence are ripe for a repeat blood-letting and a repeat repeat blood-letting and, perhaps, a repeat repeat repeat blood-letting.
    Before I continue, let me explain something about the marketing class. These people belong to a sub-species of humanity that inhabits a nether world of perpetual darkness occasioned by the fact that they are born with their heads stuck up their own assholes. One result of this odd and acrobatic physical infirmity is an inability to perceive anything beyond their own sphincters ─ for example, that a decision by top GM executives to produce gigantic, glitzy, over-priced crapmobiles with huge tail fins might lead to a jump in profits for a year or two, but will inevitably be followed by catastrophic bankruptcy a decade or two later...or that milking the same cash cow mailing list of Reader’s Digest subscribers over and over might increase dollar flow for a few months, but will soon be followed by one large, dead, dried-out bovine...or that trying to jack up contributions to the Sierra Club by demonizing George Bush will leave you shit up the creek when Bush leaves office...or that there are higher considerations in life for Reader’s Digest marketers such as George Grune, Dick McLoughlin, Tom Esencourt, Ken Gordon, Marcia Lefkowitz, Neil McRae, Jack Smith, Jim Schadt, and John Bohane than living in Chappaqua or driving a Mercedes, or owning a herd of shih tzu dogs, or retiring in luxury to Spain or Florida, or fretting about which masterpieces of modern art from the Wallace collection should adorn their office walls. 
    With this said, here is an open letter to the National Audubon Society, Peterborough Fire and Rescue, the World Wildlife Fund, Monadnock Music, the Nature Conservancy, the Salvation Army, Pro Firefighters of New Hampshire, Wounded Vietnam Veterans, and any other group I may have missed that comes nosing around for money again and again and again:

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

    We now have another female headed for the Supreme Court. Since I know nothing about her I’ll refrain from trashing her other than to note that she was chosen by the White House string pullers who control the Obama marionette. I’ll grant that on the face of it she seems a hell-of-a-lot more viable than Bush’s pick of Harriet Miers. (You remember Ms. Miers don’t you? For a couple of weeks back in 2005 she was the world’s most famous non-entity.)
    Here’s what the sobersides at Powerline  have to say about Ms. Kagan (MackRatings alongside in uppercase):

    So, summarizing, SCOTUS is blessed with two sitting females, one likely future female, and one past scuttled female. Here are the four of them (photos courtesy of Hither and Yon):

           
            Kagan                                    Ginsburg                                Sotomayor                                    Miers            

    Question: What is the single defining characteristic of all four of these ladies? (You have 2.5 seconds to respond).
    Right!
    They are UGLY — homely at best, unattractive certainly, even borderline hideous.
    Meaning no insult, these creatures put the lie to the phrase, "The fair sex." I mean they make Janet Reno look like a prom queen.
    Am I saying that ugly women should not be appointed to the Supreme Court?
    Yes! Exactly! Precisely!
    You say I'm a Chauvinist Pig?
    Yes! Exactly! Precisely!
    What the court needs desperately is someone to bring it together, someone to unite the court in the pursuit of a common goal (i.e., sex), someone to disperse the atmosphere of dissention and replace it with lust, someone who can lift the dark clouds of tedium that hover over the court's deliberations, someone to dispel sterile arguments about whether the court should enforce the Constitution or whether it should defer to those higher considerations of morality and loving-kindness outlined in films by Al Gore and Michael Moore.
    With these weighty factors in mind, I, therefore, respectfully request that Elena Kagan withdraw her name (gracefully or otherwise).
    In her place, I nominate Andie MacDowell, the woman with the most beautiful smile in the history of the world.
    

                                
                             Andie MacDowell, next Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

    Justice Clarence Thomas will be eternally grateful.
    And so will I when I am named to the court at some future date in some alternate universe by some really fucked-up President.

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net